The access of users to internet services through a private or public IP network, such as a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), etc., must be controlled for reason of security and to avoid useless load of network lines. Companies providing remote access to their servers, such as web content servers, often share the services of authentication using a Remote Access dial-in User Services (RADIUS) server to control remote user connections. The protocol for authentication and authorization is defined in the Request For Comment (RFC) documents RFC 2865 and the RADIUS protocol for accounting is defined in the RFC 2866. The RADIUS server performs authentication of users and checks that the remote users are authorized to be connected to the network, in order to access the content servers through the IP network. The RADIUS server is also in charge of collecting accurate accounting of connection time so that the users may be billed correctly by the content servers.
Users can connect to an IP Network in numerous ways, including through a PSTN, GPRS, digital subscriber lines (xDSL), and wireless network WI-FI. Such a connection is made by means of access servers acting as gateways which are installed at the periphery of the IP network. The access server establishes a user session using the services of a RADIUS server. The RADIUS server performs the authentication, checking the password received from a user and provides an authorization to connect according to the network capacity. The access server sends an IP address to the user and acts as a router to the IP servers once a session is established. When a session is established, it asks the RADIUS server to start the accounting for this session. When the user is disconnected by the network, the access server asks the RADIUS server to stop the accounting for this session. One RADIUS server can collect accounting information for a set of access servers. Using the accounting information, a bill for the connection to IP content servers is created and sent to the user.
The application service providers (ASP) have to adapt their services according to the type of access network used by their customers. Thus, a customer can now have access to video services through GPRS, WI-FI, PSTN or a leased line and the connection parameters used by the ASP will be different according to the access network being used. However, these connection parameters, such as identification, speed or bandwidth are not provided today at the application level. This could be detrimental for some specific services such as media distribution. In some cases, this needed information can be retrieved by the web application from the RADIUS server session table using the client IP address. Unfortunately, these solutions do not work if there is a proxy or a firewall in mode proxy between the user and the web application.
Another solution consists in requesting some information from the user, such as the quality of the video being received according to the speed or bandwidth. But, in most cases, the user is not able to answer or is unable to determine the speed negotiated by the modem. Furthermore, the RADIUS server has no open interface to provide connection information in real time to third party application (proxy, application server . . . ).